


I am turning in revolution

by SkyScribbles



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Divergent Post Ep 114, Character Development, Essek's Many Many Issues, First Kiss, Gen, Hot Tub Conversations, M/M, Non-graphic description of a dead body, Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:54:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29063901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyScribbles/pseuds/SkyScribbles
Summary: I don’t know if I can protect all of you,he thinks, not for the first time – and it terrifies him and it enrages him.This is what happens, Essek supposes, when you end up caring for people.(In which the Mighty Nein come to Rosohna, carrying a dead Assembly member and a death mark from the Empire - and asking for Essek's protection.)
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast, The Mighty Nein & Essek Thelyss
Comments: 39
Kudos: 391





	I am turning in revolution

**Author's Note:**

> I first drafted this fic after Vess's death, but before Essek showed up on Eiselcross. Once Essek appeared I was too attached to the idea to stop writing or change anything. (This is what fanfic's for, after all!) So this takes place in a hypothetical post-Eiselcross future, where the only major change from canon is that Essek never went to Eiselcross.
> 
> Absolutely massive thanks to my wonderful beta saturday_sky! You're a gift <3

The Mighty Nein poison him, chain him, march him through the streets, and listen as he vivisects his life before them. They hold his hand and kiss his forehead and tell him _you sound like all of us,_ and beg him to bring them cupcakes.

Then they do not speak to him for over a month.

The days bleed together. Essek floats from the Bastion to his towers, from his towers to the Bastion, and misses the feel of his feet on the ground. He replays Caleb's words to him until every breath, every inflection, is engraved in his mind like ink into his spellbook. He writes drafts for a dozen Sendings: everything from a simple _how are you?_ to _if you do not plan to return to Rosohna, I understand, and I can only apologise for all I have done._ He sends none of them.

And because it is easier than hoping, Essek gives up. He resigns himself: he will never again hear Jester’s voice tell him that he's super cool and she misses him. The guest chambers of his house will remain unused. His friends' business in the Dynasty is done; their road leads them elsewhere, away from Rosohna, away from him. They are not returning.

He should know better, by now, than to think he can predict the Mighty Nein.

The message doesn’t explode in his head, as is usual. It almost fizzles into it, odd and muted, like Jester’s shouting to him from underwater. ‘Um, hey. Is your house protected against scrying? Also, assassins? If it is, can we come there soon? We need a safe place.’ A long silence, and then, so quietly that he barely catches it, ‘Please, Essek.’

The message ends; the silence returns. Essek hovers motionless halfway along one of his tower walkways, gripping the books he was carrying so hard that the spines dig into his hands.

‘Jester. It’s been some time,’ he says, hoping that he sounds pleasantly surprised rather than achingly relieved. ‘My home is indeed warded against scrying, and unwanted intrusion. Who is sending assassins after you? If I can help –’

He’s out of words. He’s usually better at managing these. There’s a long quiet, in which Essek assumes the Mighty Nein are holding a rushed discussion on how to reply. Then Jester's voice again. ‘It’s the Assembly. They want to kill us, Essek. We keep trying to find hiding places and they keep attacking us.’ Another silence, then, ‘So can we come?’

Essek closes his eyes.

It’s not new to him, the idea of his friends’ lives being in danger. There have always been people who wanted to kill the Mighty Nein, for as long as he’s known them. The Angel of Irons Cult. That Scourger. Even a dragon, once, apparently. But this – this is different. This is the Cerberus Assembly. This is a group of some of the most powerful people in Wildemount, and they want Essek’s friends dead. They want to create a world in which Jester does not send messages at the most inconvenient hours and laugh her gleeful laugh. A world where Caduceus does not keep a steady flow of tea and gentleness poured into the people around him. A world where an arcane equation does not make Caleb’s eyes narrow with focus and spark with delight.

‘That’s certainly a predicament,’ Essek says. ‘My situation with the Assembly is not particularly secure at present, but… we can be careful.’

He has five words left. Not enough for what he should say, which is: _I_ _am not in a position to anger the Assembly. I cannot promise you protection; I cannot promise I will not put my selfishness above your lives._

Essek fumbles for words that might approximate this. There are none, of course, so what he sends up saying is, ‘Come. And be safe.’

Jester’s voice is heavy with relief when it returns. ‘Thank you, Essek. Thank you so so much. We can’t teleport to you, because magic is soup here, but we’ll be there in a little –’

The spell snaps off, and silence returns.

 _A little_ turns out to be a week, in which Jester’s voice – still subdued, still scared – sounds in Essek’s head once a day to update him on the Mighty Nein’s progress. Then the wards in his tower alert him of an arrival, a teleportation spell carrying multiple people into his laboratory, and Essek races up the stairs as fast as his float will carry him and pushes open the door, and – and they’re there.There, and different. Caduceus has cut his hair. Fjord’s beard has grown in properly. Yasha’s hair is white at the roots and Jester looks off, somehow, different in a way that Essek can’t pin down. Beau carries a new staff and stands next to Yasha with an easy closeness that wasn’t there before, and Caleb, Caleb has let a little scruff return to his face and is no longer wearing clothes in the Dynasty style that was so close to Essek's own tastes.

Essek is very aware of his silver mantle and purple cloak, the same attire that his friends have always seen him in. Time has changed them. Essek has remained in stasis.

‘Mighty Nein,’ he says. ‘Welcome back. It is –’ He hesitates, wondering if saying the words on his tongue would be overstepping – ‘very good to see you all again.’

Jester launches herself at him. He was somewhat prepared for this possibility, but her hug still knocks him a few metres backwards and knocks out most of his air. ‘You too, Essek,’ she says against his shoulder, and the knot of tension in his stomach unravels a little. Or maybe that’s just his body going numb from Jester’s death grip on him.

‘We are sorry to burst in like this,’ Caleb says, once Jester has let go. ‘But things have become very complicated, and we don’t have a great deal in the way of allies at present.’

Beau nods. ‘Not allies who could fight back against, you know. Assassins.’

‘I see,’ Essek says. So. He is someone whose life they are willing to risk, then.

‘Please don’t think that means we’re comfortable putting you at risk,’ Caleb says, and Essek almost jumps. ‘Our hope is that you will be safer than most. You could put Ludinus and Trent in a great deal of trouble with a single word, so hopefully they will be hesitant to act against you. But we know you’re in a bit of a precarious spot, so if our presence puts you in danger that you’re not willing to face, we will teleport somewhere else the moment you say the word.’

They _are_ putting him in danger. And yet the last thing that Essek wants them to do is leave.

‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ he says. ‘After all, nothing I do has ever been safe. But what exactly is it that you need from me? Are you asking me to hide you, or to appeal for the Bright Queen’s official protection? And what exactly is the Assembly's issue with you?’

The Mighty Nein glance at each other.

‘Easiest to show you, really,’ Caleb says, and holds up a drop of amber from a string around his neck. He mumbles something, there’s a flash of light, and –

It’s instinct that makes Essek lash out with telekinesis and catch the body before it hits the floor. It hovers in the air before him, dried blood streaked down the cheeks, skin pale and drawn tight across the bones. His eyes scan the robes and the face, the pieces fall together, and his brain leaps from _Assembly mage_ to _Assembly_ Arch _mage_ to _oh, fucking Light, Vess DeRogna._

Essek stares. Breathes in. Looks at his friends.

‘Mm,’ he says. ‘That would certainly be an issue.’

* * *

They did not assassinate her, it turns out.

But the Assembly thinks they did, so the consequence is the same. (Though Essek is a little relieved to know that they don’t make a habit of murdering high-ranking wizards.) The Nein are on the run, and the Empire’s assassins have followed them at every turn, and Xhorhas is one of the only places they thought the Scourgers might hesitate to go.

They spill out the story in their usual fashion, everyone talking over each other with the parts they consider most important, leaving Essek holding the jumbled blocks of a narrative and trying to slot them together into order. But he’s sharp, and at the end of twenty minutes he’s pieced together something about a former friend named Molly or possibly Lucien or possibly Nonagon, and a cult, and Eiselcross, and the fact that the Mighty Nein took on a contract with Vess DeRogna and swiftly discovered that they are very poor bodyguards.

‘I can’t promise,’ Essek says, once silence finally falls around his dining table, ‘that you will be safe here.’

Veth frowns. ‘Why? I thought your queenie hated the Assembly.’

‘Oh, she does. I doubt the Bright Queen would grieve for DeRogna if she knew. But consider: you have come here bringing the corpse of an Assembly member, very soon after a delicate peace has been made. You are known to be heroes of the Dynasty, acquaintances of the Queen –’

‘And people are going to think we killed DeRogna on the Bright Queen’s orders.’ Beau slumps back in her seat. ‘I told you guys this was a shitty idea.’

 _Because the political climate is too shitty to be safe, or because I am too shitty to be safe?_ Essek bites back the question. He’d prefer not to know. ‘If the Empire learned of your presence here, they might well demand that you be extradited to face justice. That would leave the Bright Queen with a choice: protect you and risk further war, or hand you over and prevent it. And while you have been useful enough to the Dynasty for her to think well of you, she would not risk another war for your sakes. She despises the Empire, yes; she also loves her people.’ Essek will give her that, if nothing else.

The table is very quiet. Things are not supposed to be quiet, around the Mighty Nein.

‘So we can’t stay here,’ Yasha says at last. ‘We're just going to mess up the peace.’

‘Not necessarily. You will mess up the peace only if others become aware of your presence. My home cannot be scryed upon, and for now, at least, the Scourgers cannot follow your trail. And as long as you don’t go charging through the streets, the Dynasty will be none the wiser.’ Essek hesitates, weighs the risk and the reward in his mind, and decides that the reward of the Nein being here, whole, safe, is enough for him. ‘If you need a safe haven while you plan your next move, you have one. Though I will have to be careful; I might draw attention if I began suddenly purchasing enough food for eight.’

‘That is very generous,’ Caleb says, quietly.

And because this is the Mighty Nein, Fjord speaks at the same time. ‘Oh, we won’t need to put you to that trouble. Caleb can sort out food and shelter for us.’ Turning to Caleb, he adds, 'You can cast the Tower now, right? Now we're not going to have Scourgers detecting it and dispelling it every five minutes?'’

Essek blinks. ‘Tower?’

‘An extradimensional space,’ Caleb says. ‘Akin to a Mansion spell. And yes, Fjord, I can cast it. Our friend here won't even have to know we’re around.’

Essek has several thoughts at once, including _that is very advanced magic_ and _Caleb has modified another spell, he is brilliant_ and _but I want to know that you’re around._

‘What if the Dynasty does find out, though?’ Jester says. The question is for everyone, but she’s looking at Essek, and her voice is high with worry. ‘I mean, if the Bright Queen figures out that we’re here somehow, and she gets mad at you for hiding us and maybe getting like the whole country in trouble with the Empire –’

‘I’ve hidden bigger things from her.’

Essek regrets the allusion to his treason immediately. The tension in the room is palpable, and he coughs and adds, ‘I do not think the Dynasty would protect you. But… _I_ will. I have put you all in danger in the past. We can call this – ’ _Restitution,_ is his first thought, but he knows that’s impossible. ‘An apology.’

There’s a wary, bitter part of his mind that’s already demanding to know why he’s doing this. It puts everything at risk: his life, his reputation, the peace –

And the part of his mind that’s been quietly seething ever since Jester first messaged him provides the answer. It’s because, when Essek thinks of the Assembly coming for the Mighty Nein, he feels murderous enough to not only start another war, but to fight it. _I don’t know if I can protect all of you,_ he thinks, not for the first time – and it terrifies him and it enrages him.

This is what happens, Essek supposes, when you end up caring for people.

The Nein glance at each other, and Essek thinks it’s a sign of how tired and haunted they all are that they don’t discuss it any further. ‘Just a few days,’ Caleb says. ‘Until we have a plan for dealing with this situation.’

‘You are welcome for as long as you need to stay,’ Essek says. ‘Although – if it’s not too much trouble, could you perhaps get rid of that corpse?’

They insist that they’re holding onto it ‘for information’, which Essek would like to know as little about as possible – but they return it to Caleb’s necklace, and Caleb begins casting his Tower. Essek watches as he sets down fragments of glass and a wand, and then draws runes on the ground, and with one deft flick of his fingers there’s a door before them. Caleb pulls it open, and the Nein practically throw themselves inside, like it’s worth expending the last of their energy if it gets them a rest faster. Jester grabs Essek by the arm. ‘Do you want the tour?’

‘I’m certainly curious.’

Which is invitation enough, apparently, for Jester to drag him inside. She releases him once they’re across the threshold, which is good, because it allows Essek to stay floating on the spot, staring at the stained glass windows and the tower rising above him, his lips slightly parted. Jester floats upwards after the rest of the Nein, shouting something about how Essek just needs to think _up –_ ‘and that should be easy, you’re like, the expert at floating.’

It takes Essek a moment to realise he’s not quite alone. Caleb has lingered on the brass platform with him, watching him. His face is unreadable.  
  
Essek's stomach plummets to what feels like the far reaches of the Underdark. How could it not have occurred to him that this is Caleb's tower, that Caleb's permission should have been asked? Caleb, who looked Essek in the eye a few months ago and said _make no mistake, we do not trust you._ Sauntering into one of Caleb's creations is like opening his spellbook without permission, and really, Essek should have learned by now that he cannot simply insert himself into the Mighty Nein's lives.

He licks his dry lips with a dry tongue. ‘I, ah... hope that I am not intruding. Insistent as Jester's invitation was, this place is your invention, and I would understand any discomfort you might have with my presence here. So... if you would prefer for me to remain outside...’

A pin-drop silence. The brass iris in the ceiling has closed after the rest of the Nein, leaving just the two of them on the platform. Standing at opposite edges of the circle, like fighters at the start of a gladiatorial bout.

At last, Caleb pushes his hands into his pockets and says, ‘I am used to this being a very safe place for us.’

‘I understand,' Essek says, which he does, even as something inside him aches at the words. ‘I will leave you all to settle in, and -’

‘No, I - I mean that this has not been a safe place for us recently. I would put it up and then the Assembly's people would come and pull it down, and then we would escape and I would put it up again and the same thing would happen.’ Caleb's eyes flick from the floor to Essek's face, and stay there with an intensity that makes Essek want to flinch. ‘You have made it safe for us again. So... come and have dinner with us.’

He's looking at Essek like... like he did when they first knew each other. Suspicious, cautious, but intrigued. Sharp eyes weighing Essek up, sharp mind figuring him out. Deciding how much trust to give. And it's painful, of course it's painful, to know that after all these months they're right back where they started, and yet -

Well. There are worse places for the two of them to be than back at the beginning. Beginnings, after all, leave things open.

Essek realises, belatedly, that he has not said anything in response. And that they are still looking at each other. The light through the stained glass window is casting crimson and gold over the contours of Caleb's face.

And Essek should not be noticing that. Should not be allowing himself to think _beautiful,_ but here he is, thinking it - and really, Essek had thought this wasn't going to be a problem anymore. To be sure, there was a time when every interaction he had with Caleb crackled with potential, simmered with possibilities of things that might be. Words that might be said. Touches that might be shared. Then Caleb snapped manacles around Essek's wrists, and Essek felt those potentials die, like so many timelines that never have a chance to be. 

(It never _was_ possible, he reminded himself, during those weeks when the Nein didn't speak to him. It could never have been, while everything between them was built on lies.)

But now Caleb is welcoming Essek into his refuge, or at least accepting him there - and once again, the space between them feels full of dangerous _maybes._

Essek forces himself to speak. It's dangerous to leave silence between him and Caleb, right now. ‘It would be a pleasure to join you. I'm very curious to see what you've done with this spell.’

‘Well. Come and sate your curiosity,’ Caleb says. And if his smile is small and fleeting, it is at least a smile.

* * *

Caleb’s tower is perfect, of course.

It sings of its creator, in every light ray that falls through the stained glass, in every crammed shelf in the salon library, every purring servant, every personalised luxury that’s a love letter to Caleb's friends. Essek lets Jester pull him around the great hall and the salon, but resists the urge - and Jester's urging - to go beyond. He is not about to push at the limits of Caleb's welcome. Food is served, and Essek spends the next hour being talked at by the Nein from all sides as they gorge themselves on the richest meal he's ever seen. They seem eager to hear his news – desperate, he supposes, to talk about anything that’s not Scourgers and dead Archmages.

It’s different from the first dinner he had with them. Every so often he’ll catch Beau or Veth shooting him measuring, warning looks (which Essek understands, and agrees with), or Caleb shooting him a pained, searching look (which Essek understands, and which cuts him to the core). And yet. There’s a new quality to their conversation, because this time there are no secrets to raise invisible walls between them, and Essek doesn’t need to swallow down words that might give him away.

He couldn't say that it's easier than their first dinner together, or more comfortable. But it feels – deeper, somehow.

And once it’s done, the Mighty Nein drift away to their respective rooms, and Caleb clears his throat and looks at Essek. ‘I know you have your own place, but… we do have a guest room. If you wished to stay the night.’

He's watching Essek's face very intently. Looking for his reaction, probably. Essek wishes him luck, because this invitation is so huge and unexpected that even _he_ doesn't know what his reaction is. Caleb is letting him stay. Here, in his sanctuary, in the place where he wants to feel safe and at home. Essek's mouth has gone dry again.

Jester – racing Fjord upwards to their floor – shouts down to him. ‘You should definitely stay, Essek! Caleb makes the rooms all _personal._ I bet yours is the fanciest.'

Caleb shrugs. He still hasn't broken eye contact. ‘ _Ja,_ I have given the room a few personal touches. But – please don’t feel pressured. Your own home is more familiar.’

Yes, it is. It is familiar, and effortless to exist in, and it will be the same as it’s been for all the decades Essek’s been living there. Nothing warm or bright or new. This tower is full of coloured glass and voices, and Caleb made a room for _him_ and Caleb invited him to stay.

‘I would certainly like to see it,’ Essek says.

So Caleb leads him up through the tower to Caduceus’s and Yasha’s floor, and towards a door. It’s purple wood, emblazoned with an image of a pearl contained within geometric shapes. And beyond –

The first thing he sees is the window. Purple glass that fades into blue-black at the cross, slashed across with the arcs and lines of a star map. Silvery circles like planets or moons. And at the top, an arcane glyph, which Essek recognises as the rune for Fortune’s Favour. There’s a fireplace below the window, and beside that, a chair of dark wood and purple velvet identical to the ones Essek has in his own home. The ceiling – for a moment, Essek thinks there is no ceiling. The grey brick turns to purple-black above him, covered in a million tiny Dancing Lights, shifting and moving like stars pulled by gravity. All the constellations of Rosohna float above him, drenching the room in light.

‘Through here,’ Caleb says. Briskly, like it's easer for him to bring Essek here if he moves too fast to think about what he's doing. He opens a second door, revealing a room with a spell-writing circle on the floor, and a workspace covered in glass vials. Because of course Caleb would have worked out, just from the scent of Essek’s home, that he’s an alchemist as well as an arcanist, and of course he would have remembered. And through the door on the other side –

‘I have never seen your actual room at home,’ Caleb says, ‘so I had to make some guesses.’

A four-poster-bed with purple drapes, and a padded headboard for an elf to sit against while trancing. A bookshelf. A circular indent in the stone floor, filled with gently steaming water – a smaller version of the Mighty Nein’s hot tub. A table holding a tray of black moss cupcakes. 

‘The books are all things from my own memories that I thought you might find some interest in,’ Caleb says. He can't seem to decide whether he wants to keep watching Essek's face, or avoid looking at him at all. ‘If there is anything you want added, just mention it to me. We have a bigger hot tub downstairs, but I thought you might like one for, you know. Personal use.’

Essek turns in a slow circle, absorbing every inch. And only once he's finished does he notice the tension in Caleb's shoulders. Almost like he's preparing to be struck. Which is understandable; this creation must have taken time and thought and care, and he's given those to Essek before, only to end up hurt.

‘This is remarkable,’ Essek says. ‘And beautiful. I–’

And then he’s fighting the urge to cry.

It’s just – it’s too _much,_ this room filled with things that taste of him _,_ things that Caleb has remembered or dreamt up for his sake. Mages do not do such things. Those who are intelligent and capable will always be dubious, always hide their intentions behind smiles and privacy. But now Caleb has spilled out his heart into three rooms with stained glass windows, and it says _I see you, I notice you, and I care._

At last, Essek settles on the woefully inadequate, ‘Thank you, Caleb.’ And then, ‘Seeing the heights your abilities have risen to, I understand now why I have not been badgered for teleports once every week.’

Caleb relaxes a little, and a slow smile spreads across his face. ‘That is something I have cracked. All the non-stop peril has made me learn fast.’

‘So I see. I can’t say I’d rather leave the safety of my laboratory for your style of learning, but it’s very impressive.’

There’s a pause, in which Caleb looks at Essek, frowning. ‘Is that what keeps you here?’

‘What do you mean?’

He’s playing for time, of course. He knows exactly what Caleb means.

‘Is it fear of the dangers outside Rosohna that keeps you here in the Dynasty, though you have no love for it, as I love my home? I went to Eiselcross to find out why there is poison at the heart of the Empire and tear it out. I want my home to change because I love it. But you – you want your people to change, without loving them.’

Essek manages not to grimace. He wasn’t prepared for this, for how swiftly Caleb has turned the conversation from something light into something intense and piercing. ‘No. I do not. I never pretended to you that I was an idealist. That my motivations were anything other than selfish.’

‘Selfish but important, you said. How so?’

Light, why does he have to sound so _careful?_ If he spoke harshly, Essek could back away, put his hackles up, refuse to answer. 

‘What I am attempting with the Beacons...' Essek grits his teeth, searching for the right words. 'It is important because I have spent a century beating my fists against the walls of this religion. As a young man, I watched my peers go through anamnesis, elevated into power and status and acclaim for doing _nothing,_ while I had to study and work to meet the expectations put upon me. As I grew older, I saw my theories, my questions, ignored. The Dynasty listened to those on their second and third lifetimes, even when they had nothing to say.’

Hm. He is angry. Not with Caleb, of course, but with everything outside this tower. His anger has simmered in silence for a hundred and twenty years, and now it can at last be spoken safely, and Essek aches with his want to unleash it. To be _heard._

‘And all the time, I have had my mother, my Den, telling me that they hope I bring honour to Den Thelyss by unlocking the secrets of Dunamancy. When I first showed my mother this – ’ He floats off the ground, then drops back onto it – ‘she _noticed_ me, what I could do, for the first time since she realised I was a new soul. She was never cruel, but she - she is an Umavi, she doesn't have _time_ to notice everyone in her Den, she - ’ No. No more talking about his mother. It is too confusing, too painful. ‘Everyone urged me to be the greatest arcanist in the Dynasty if I could, and that means finding out what the Beacons are, what they can do. _They_ pushed me towards that: the same people who would be the first to accuse me of heresy if they knew my real thoughts. But if I prove that the Beacons are not divine -'

If he proves it, then all those expectations have been met at last. It means vindication in his anger, it means a reason for his loneliness, it means he should never have been ignored. 

Quiet, for a moment. The stars on the ceiling turn, the movement mirrored in the hot tub water.

‘If you prove it,' Caleb says, 'they will kill you.’

Essek stares.

‘This religion - it has meant everything to your leaders for so many years. If you came to them with knowledge that could tear it all away, shake this society to its foundations – they would have you killed, so that you could not destroy everything they have built, everything they know. Or you would be exiled. Or they would ruin your reputation so thoroughly that you might as well be dead and silent.’

Essek bares his teeth, realising too late how threatening a gesture that might seem to a human. ‘This civilisation _should_ be shaken to its foundations.’

‘And would that make you happy?’

‘It would make me _right.’_

Everything is very quiet. Seconds pass. Essek clenches and unclenches his fists inside his cloak. Caleb turns away, goes to the bookshelf, straightens the already-straight books. His jaw is clenched.

‘I stay because I cannot leave,’ Essek says, when a minute has gone by and Caleb still hasn’t spoken. ‘My work is here. This is where I have the space, the coin, the status, to do my research.’

Caleb turns back at last, waving hand at the room around him. ‘I made this spell alone, in a Tiny Hut spell. I fight monsters and I get the money for paper and ink from it.’

‘But you have nowhere else to go, no other life to live.’ The words come out more brutal-sounding than Essek intended, but it’s too late to take them back. ‘I have a home and a life here.’

‘And you are lonely in them.’

‘There are expectations upon me –’

‘Put on you by people who have no love for you, nor you for them.’ 

‘I have spent a hundred years trying to prove to my Den that they should think well of me. To walk away now –’

Caleb’s eyes are so kind, suddenly. _I do not want your pity,_ Essek almost snaps – except he does, of course. He wants to step into Caleb’s arms and be held, to know that someone cares about his pain. Wants to let out the howl inside him: _my Den doesn’t love me, Caleb, not in any way I understand. Not in the way that your friends love you._

But because that is impossible, Essek simply says, ‘Why are you saying any of this?’

‘Because a few weeks ago I found out that a very clever, very talented mage had died alone. She had a pathetic nothing of a death, and nobody will mourn her. I do not want to see you meet a fate like Vess DeRogna’s, and I fear that you will, if you stay here and keep gutting yourself for the sake of people who will never care to understand you.’

 _As I understand you. As I care._ The implication shivers in the air, like static.

‘And because I thought you were not ready to put your friends above your ambitions. And I was wrong. Jester and Caduceus pushed for us to come here, and you protected us. I –’ Caleb stops. Swallows. His fingers bunch into his scarf. ‘I underestimated you, Essek. I misjudged you. I think… I see so much of myself in you that I think perhaps I saw too much. But now I trust you a little more than before, and I hope for you a lot more, and I - I want more for you than the life you have.’

And they are again, staring at each other, a silence between them that resonates with unsaid things. The starlight patterns shift across Caleb's face.

Light, but Essek wants to keep looking. Wants the silence to last. Right now, he feels almost reckless enough to announce that he will stay here in this tower, and not go back to the world where he's trapped inside a perpetual smile and an armoured mantle, static in the self he's built. He wants to learn how to shift and become new in his own skin, like the Nein do so effortlessly. He wants this _thing_ in the air between himself and Caleb, so badly that it burns. He wants to be seen and known and held, all the ways he’s never been seen by his family, or known by his people, or held by the god he was raised to believe in.

But it isn’t _safe_.

Essek breathes in. The air tastes of herbs and lightning, like it does in his own tower. ‘Are you asking me to leave with you?’

‘I am saying that you would have a place here in this tower, if you ever wanted to leave.’ Caleb's fingers are so tightly clenched into his scarf now that his knuckles have gone pale. ‘Is it something you would even consider?’

‘I _can’t._ If I leave, everything I have worked for, everything I have done to achieve it – it all means nothing.’

‘If you achieve it, _they will kill you._ And as for the war – it already means nothing. It will never mean anything except that people died. You cannot give it a purpose; you cannot make sense of something senseless.’ Caleb steps forward, and Essek is ready to step back - but then there's a touch against his hands. Gentle, the kind of touch that’s asking a question, allowing Essek to pull away if he doesn’t want it. But he doesn’t pull away, and a moment later Caleb is holding his hands.

‘I know,’ he says. ‘I _know_ what it is to look at your home and want to scream. I cannot tell you how to change your people. I know how I want to change mine, but this – this is yours.’ His fingers squeeze Essek’s, ever so gently. ‘All the same, this path you are on… if you get what you want, I am so sure they will only hurt you for it. If you did ever want to come with us, to maybe find a better way to get your answers and change things… ’

He's using the same voice he did on the ship. The fierce, pleading one. 'You are _brilliant,_ Essek. You could achieve everything you want, and be happy doing it.’

And some part of Essek’s mind is reckless enough to believe that he is saying, _you could be happy, here, with me._

No. No, it is not possible. Because Essek has survived by cruelty for a hundred and twenty years. And in the Mighty Nein’s world, you survive by kindness – and Essek is not capable of that. He proved that, when he watched a war engulf the world and did not regret it.

‘I can’t.’ He disentangles his hands from Caleb’s, and pulls them inside his cloak. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t.’

There’s another pause, and Essek stares at the ground. Unable to meet Caleb's eyes. Dreading whatever he says next.

What Caleb says is, ‘All right. Good night, Essek.’

And then he’s gone, the doors to each section of Essek’s quarters opening and closing again behind him. Essek sinks onto the nearest chair and wraps his arms around his torso, knowing that something almost happened, just then, when Caleb held his hands and offered him the world.

He sits. He doesn’t move. He lets the memory of something that never was play in his mind: what would have happened, how it would have felt, if he had said _yes._ Broken free of his stasis and closed the distance.

* * *

It turns out that hiding the presence of the loudest, most chaotic group of adventurers in Exandria is a great deal more difficult than hiding treason.

Things go fine for a day. A week. A week and a half. Every so often the Mighty Nein come up with some idea to prove that they weren’t responsible for what happened to DeRogna, and they teleport away and return bedraggled and clutching freshly-healed wounds. ‘New plan, same assassins,’ Caleb tells Essek casually, after the second time, while Essek stares at his bloodied coat and Beau's bandaged chest and wonders if he could have prevented this, if he had been there.

He does what he can, of course. He Prestidigitates the gore from them. He keeps them updated on the political news and strengthens the wards on his home. He brings pastries – real pastries, from Rosohna’s best bakeries, not made by magic cats. He talks to them, eats with them, sleeps in the room Caleb has made for him in the Tower, and he hopes, _Light,_ he hopes that he helps.

Keeping himself busy has another benefit: it reduces the amount of time he has to think about what Caleb said to him, and what Essek did not say back. He acts as if nothing has changed, as if nothing happened between them, because it's easiest and because nothing _did_ happen. Caleb is kind enough, or hurt enough, or resigned enough, to do the same. 

Essek pushes the memories aside. He joins the Nein's planning sessions. He casts Fortune's Favour and Gift of Alacrity on them before they depart. No Scourgers appear, and Essek allows himself to believe that all will be well.

And then the Bright Queen summons him.

* * *

The thing about being guilty of high treason is that if you’re intelligent – and Essek is – you make preparations for being caught.

Which is why Essek goes to the meeting, rather than cutting his losses and packing his bags. He’s planned for this scenario a thousand times, and he has twelve different exit strategies for if things go wrong. And he has something that’s at once the wildcard and the ace in his sleeve: he tells the Mighty Nein where he’s going, and why.

(Jester, of course, tells him not to go at all. ‘That would be as good as declaring my guilt,’ he says, and she frowns and sets her jaw in a way that says that she understands, but that doesn’t mean she has to _like_ it.)

So he goes, a gatestone in his pocket and a slew of contingency plans in his mind. It’s a private meeting in the depths of the Bastion, not a summons before the court – which does at least mean that he’s not facing public denouncement before his entire nation. But the door to the meeting room is flanked by Aurora Watch, which is anything but reassuring. He floats inside, and is met by both of the most powerful people in the Dynasty.

The Bright Queen sits behind a desk, hands resting on each other, dressed in her silvery armour for the first time that Essek’s seen since the end of the war. The Dusk Captain stands behind and to the side of her, arms folded, watching Essek with a tactician’s calm and measuring gaze.

Quana would only be here for some kind of military matter. An issue of national security. Inside his cloak, Essek closes one hand over his gatestone.

The Bright Queen extends one gauntleted hand. ‘Take a seat, Essek.’

So she’s not furious or suspicious enough to be addressing him by his title. Yet. Essek bows, and sits.

‘Are you in need of my services, my Queen?’ he asks. Maybe that’s all this is. Maybe they need some magical research done, and he can go back and have dinner in the Mighty Nein’s tower and nothing has to change.

‘In need of your cooperation,’ she says, and Essek sighs inwardly. ‘There has been a communication from the Empire. A member of the Cerberus Assembly –’ In the half-second breath between the words, Essek waits to discover whether he needs to dread his own death or his friends' - ‘has gone missing, and the Empire believes she has been murdered by your charges. The Mighty Nein.’

Essek allows his usual mask of a smile to falter a little. ‘That is grave news indeed, though I find it most unlikely. Odd and unpredictable though the Mighty Nein are, they are not wanton killers.’

‘Unfortunately, their guilt or innocence is beside the point. The Empire is convinced of their guilt, and believes that they are being sheltered within the Dynasty.’

Essek needs to pretend this is news to him, so he nods slowly and frowns at the tabletop. ‘And they are demanding that we hand them over, I assume?’

It’s Quana who replies, her voice quiet and grave. ‘Yes. And I am reluctant to face the consequences of refusal.’

‘I saw the Mighty Nein before they left for the peace negotiations,’ Essek says. ‘Since then, they have not returned to their home. Nor have my agents informed me of their current whereabouts.’ A lie of omission. Essek has always preferred these; it is harder to disprove something that contains a truth.

There’s a moment of silence. Quana’s gaze remains on him; steady, heavy, judging. The Bright Queen’s eyes narrow, almost imperceptibly.

‘Shadowhand,’ she says, and Essek notes that they are using titles now, ‘I am sure you will understand if I take certain measures to ensure that the truth is spoken.’

What Essek thinks is, _fuck._ What he says is, ‘But of course,’ coupled with a smile and a dip of his head, because to refuse would be madness. So he sits motionless as the Bright Queen invokes the Luxon and white light floods out in a radius around her, and he does not resist as the spell binds his tongue and his mind.

He can do this. If he can withstand being forced into truth by Jester Lavorre, he can withstand it from the Bright Queen.

‘You know the Mighty Nein better than anyone here. Are you aware of their whereabouts?’

There’s no dodging a question this direct. ‘I am.’

Another silence. The Bright Queen turns and nods at Quana, who closes her eyes, focuses, and manifests an echo. A spectral copy of herself, hovering in place before the door, blocking the way out. Essek keeps his screaming internal, and continues to look placidly into the Bright Queen’s eyes.

‘Where are they?’

He must answer. Not just because of the Zone of Truth, but for his own safety, he must. He must.

He cannot. He looks down and says nothing.

‘Are they within the boundaries of the Dynasty?’

‘Yes, and no.’

‘Please speak plainly, Shadowhand.’

 _Speak plainly._ Essek grits his teeth behind his smile. His whole life, these people force lies and false smiles from him, and now, with his friends' lives on the line, the Bright Queen demands that he _speak fucking plainly?_

‘They are innocent of the crime of which they are accused,’ he says. ‘After several attempts on their lives, they came to the Dynasty hoping that the Empire's assassins would not dare to follow. They have created a shelter in an extradimensional space, and are sheltering there while they form a plan to clear their names. They will be gone soon.’

Years in the court have made Essek a practiced scholar of the Bright Queen’s many moods, so he pinpoints the exact moment where her expression becomes stone.

‘You knew this,’ she says. ‘And you did not report them to anyone. Why?’

_Because they did not turn me in, when they had the option. How could I do the same to them?_

He cannot say that, of course, so he says nothing while he searches for words, and a moment later the Bright Queen is standing, one hand flat on the tabletop. ‘Do you realise what you have done?’

Yes, he does. He has endangered his nation for selfish purposes once again, and once again, he doesn’t regret a thing.

‘What has become of you, Essek? For decades, you have served. Your position is not always an easy or an enviable one, but you have performed well. Your ambition has been obvious, but predictable and harmless.’ Essek bites down the urge to laugh. ‘But since the arrival of these mercenaries, these Mighty Nein... you tutored the human, gave him our dunamancy, without consulting me. Even after you were aware of my disapproval. And now this. What is it they use to sway you?’

An opening. She’s given him a way out, a chance to pretend he’s being blackmailed, forced. If Essek had any sense, he’d do to the Nein what he did to Adeen. Throw them into the fire to keep himself from being burned. Walk away from this with his position and his neck intact, and settle himself back into the mould of the comfortable selfish creature he's always been. Static. And safe.

That is how this world works. Cruelty is as inevitable as war. Adapting to that cruelty, keeping a step ahead of it, learning to be harsher than it is – that is how you survive.

He should be cruel. Cruelty will protect him.

 _And would that make you happy?_ Caleb’s voice says, from a quiet corner of his mind.

 _It would make me alive,_ Essek snarls back, but of course the caveat follows: _and it would make the Mighty Nein dead._

He sighs. ‘There is no game here. I have protected the Mighty Nein because they have been -’ He tries to say _useful to me,_ but his tongue locks up, the spell freezing the words. The truth it is, then. ‘They have been friends to me. I accept that it was selfish, and that it has endangered the Dynasty. I can tell you only that this was done with no ulterior motive, other than care for my friends.’

Quana’s eyebrows raise. The Bright Queen’s lips part.

‘Seven mercenaries,’ she says. Every word is icelike. ‘For seven mercenaries, you endangered the lives of every citizen in our nation? What delusion makes you think that their lives are more important than the entire Dynasty?’

‘They are to me.’

He did not expect the words. But he is tied to the truth, after all. And Caleb said _choose to do something,_ months ago, and Caleb gave him a room with a starlight ceiling and a stained glass window.

The Bright Queen’s lips draw back into a snarl. ‘What you have done is treason.’

This - this is not right. The accusation is fair, of course, for more reasons than she knows, but for the Bright Queen's composure to break is unheard of. Unveiled emotions are not _done_ in Dynasty politics. Essek knows how to deal with the dance of politeness; this is unfamiliar. Unpredictable. For all he knows, it's a sign that the Bright Queen is about to order Quana to execute him where he sits. He shoots a glance at the Dusk Captain, mind already whirring: there's no antimagic field in the room, or the Zone of Truth would not have worked, so if Quana so much as moves he will activate the gatestone and be gone. If the room is impervious to teleportation, then he casts Etherealness, steps through the walls and runs. If that fails, he -

Quana moves. 

But it's not the lurch of hand to sword hilt that Essek was expecting. It's a slow, careful touch to the Bright Queen's shoulder. She's frowning: not anger, but concern.

‘Leylas,’ she says. ‘No harm has come from this yet.’

The Bright Queen turns an incredulous look on her. ‘If the Empire accuses us of sheltering fugitives –’

‘They would be wrong,’ Quana says, and Essek stares. He has never heard anyone interrupt the Bright Queen before. Even Quana. ‘The Mighty Nein hid here without our knowledge. We need only tell the Empire that we did not knowingly shelter them; that they hid here against our will, as criminals so often do. One of our officials was complicit, yes: one who is young and foolish.’

Normally, Essek would be insulted by that. And, well, he still is. But he's also relieved.

‘I do not argue that what he has done should not have a penalty. But what Essek has done is a youthful, misguided attempt to preserve his allies, not a deliberate act against our nation. It is a violation of our trust, yes. It is not an act worthy of one in his station. But it is not worthy of execution. He has not struck against our people or against the Luxon, as Adeen Tasithar did.’

Essek would very much like to scream from the irony. But he keeps his face impassive. And as he watches, the rage in the Bright Queen’s eyes dims a little, her stance softens, and she lets out a long breath between her teeth. Then she sinks back into her chair.

The cold tension in the room is gone. Essek breathes out. The danger is past. Mostly, anyway.

The Bright Queen faces him again, and her expression is the calm ruler's face again. ‘There can be no trusting your judgement, after this. You are relieved of your position.’

Of course he is. And if he thinks about that too hard he will begin panicking, so he doesn’t think about it.

‘But I will give you a choice. Tell me where the Mighty Nein are hiding, allow me to hand them over to the Empire, and you will be permitted to remain in the Dynasty. Or you may keep their refuge a secret. You may return to them, and tell them that their status here is revoked. They will leave the Dynasty immediately, and be announced to the world as unwelcome within our borders. The Empire will see that we renounce them. And you, their accomplice, will be renounced alongside them.’

She stands. ‘Those are your choices. You will surrender the Mighty Nein, or join them in exile.’

Essek clasps his hands tight together inside his cloak. In his periphery, Quana's echo shimmers. 

He can spend another hundred years scrabbling to rebuild his life and his reputation. Or he can throw it all away for seven people who don’t even trust him. _I can’t leave,_ he told Caleb, in the Tower. And it was true. For himself, for his own happiness, for his own future, he couldn't. But for the Mighty Nein -

Essek lifts his chin, meets the eyes of a woman born before the gods departed the world, and does not flinch.

‘So be it.’

* * *

‘Thank you,’ he says, after, drifting at the Dusk Captain’s side as she escorts him from the Bastion. He removed his mantle of office right there before the Bright Queen, and everyone stares as he passes, as they’d stare at a naked man. ‘I'm not sure why you defended me, exactly, but I am very glad you did.’

Quana sighs. ‘What good would your death do?’

The true thief of the beacons would be punished, for one thing. ‘You could have turned me over to the Empire along with the Mighty Nein. A show of good faith.’

‘And is this what we kill people for, now? For loyalty? For love?’

Essek finds no response to this. Quana walks on, and Essek floats on, in silence.

They reach the gates. Essek waits for a dismissal, but Quana stops and folds her hands behind her back. Her eyes run over the city, and she looks as if she is gathering words, so Essek waits.

‘You weren’t there in the beginning,’ she says. ‘But ask your mother, and she’ll tell you: there was hope back then. Idealism. We truly believed we would find a place in the world for our people. Centuries later, and here we are still, as we have been for my three lifetimes. So used to being struck that we strike first, then strike back, and strike again.’ She looks down at him. The emerald lights of the city flicker around the edges of her armour. ‘Honestly, you’re the last man I ever expected to see idealism from, Essek. But the idea that it’s worth standing up for a handful of lives, worth risking your own life and status for them – I’m glad to have seen that again.’

Essek bites back a laugh. ‘I am anything but an idealist.’ He's no longer a Dynasty citizen, which means he can say what he chooses, however reckless. So he adds, because his emotions are all far too close to the surface right now, ‘An idealist would not think that everything he just did was pointless. The Mighty Nein will have to run from the Assembly again, after all. Nothing has changed, except that I –’

He stops, because he was about to say _have lost everything._ And that isn’t true, because he has the Mighty Nein. And it isn't even true that nothing has changed, because _he_ is changing. 

‘Perhaps.’ Quana stands in the archway that leads out of the Bastion, running her gaze over the rooftops of Rosohna. The city that she must have watched for a thousand years. The same souls flowing, through the streets, just occasionally changing their faces. The same partner sitting on the same throne, slowly closing herself off to any hope that the world could be anything other than bitter and barren. 

‘Maybe nothing has changed.’ she says. ‘Maybe nothing will. But it matters, doesn’t it, that you cared enough to try?’

* * *

He’s not sure why he still expects the Mighty Nein to be furious with him. After everything, he should really have faith in their kindness. But he enters the tower with his throat dry, and spills out what happened in a voice that cracks almost as much as it did when he told them of his treason. He waits for them to say that they don’t want him. To accuse him of only wanting to join them because he’s lost everything else.

Instead Jester whispers, ‘Oh, _Essek,’_ and hugs him until his ribs ache. Essek clings to her and presses his head against her shoulder, and suddenly his eyes are wet, because Jester’s love cuts him deeper than the Bright Queen’s rage ever could. And Beau punches his shoulder, and Caduceus says something about Essek being on the right path, and Fjord says that he knows how much nerve these big decisions take but that it's worth it, that they help you move forward. Essek struggles not to do something utterly ridiculous, like crying.

No one says aloud that Essek will be joining them. They just start talking as if it’s already been decided. Which makes the whole decision not to cry a lot harder, so Essek excuses himself as soon as he can. He's still hiding in his room half an hour later, when there’s a knock at his door. Essek answers, and finds Caleb standing there with his arms laden with parchment and bottles. ‘I brought paper and ink.’

Essek smiles. ‘I will clear out my tower in the morning. I have plenty of paper and ink there.’

‘You will need more than you expect on the road, and I have some extra.’ Caleb manoeuvres past Essek and carries the pile over to the nearest table. ‘Also, if you have more books than you can take with you, just give them to me. If I read them, they will be in my memory forever, so they can be in the Tower library.’

‘Caleb, I do possess a Bag of Holding. I can bring all of my books – ’

‘Also,’ Caleb says, ‘let me know if there are any foods you would like the cats to serve, and I will try to describe them well enough to the cooks – ’

‘ _Caleb._ I can manage. You don’t need to go out of your way for me.’

‘But I am going to.’ Caleb thumps the paper down on the table. He doesn’t turn to face Essek, but stays with his hands resting on the top of the pile, staring down. ‘I want to. Like you have just gone out of your way for us.’

Essek swallows. ‘What I just did was to surrender any power I had to protect you. The last thing I want to do now is to become an unwanted imposition.’

Caleb turns so fast that his scarf swings around and slaps the wall. ‘You are not unwanted. You are wanted here, Essek. All of us want you here.’ A pause, then, very quietly, ‘I want you here.’

This is all extremely inconvenient for Essek’s no-public-crying resolution.

‘You are too stressed for this conversation,' Caleb says, after a moment.

‘And will be stressed for some time, I think, considering that I just renounced my citizenship.’

‘There is a solution to that. Not the citizenship-renouncing, the stress. You have a hot tub. We could talk there.’

Essek blinks, struggling to process the concept of him and Caleb and a hot tub and the two of them, alone together. He shouldn't. But he's already made one reckless decision today, so - ‘All right.’

He regrets the decision almost as soon as Caleb follows him into the third room, but to his relief, Caleb seems to sense that Essek can't handle certain levels of intimacy right now. He removes only his boots, socks and padded overshirt, empties his pockets, and slides into the hot tub with everything else on. Essek swallows, then unfastens his jacket. The last time he did this, he sat on the brink of the hot tub, almost fully-clothed, while his friends immersed themselves. Now, he shrugs off everything but his shirt and trousers and joins Caleb in the water. 

It’s awkward for about a minute. Then it’s terrifying for two more minutes. Caleb sits silent, and Essek’s brain stops shrieking, gradually, about the lack of layers and distance between them. He breathes out and lies back against the rim of the hot tub. Breathes in and out again, and feels like he’s truly breathing for the first time in hours. Or years. Tension runs out of him like sweat and dissolves.

‘What are you feeling?’ Caleb says at last. He's leaning back with his arms spread out against the hot tub's rim, looking more relaxed than he's been around Essek since he learned the truth.

‘I don’t know. Nothing I'm familiar with. I feel…’ Essek hesitates. Tries to string out the knot of anxiety inside him into words. ‘I feel regret, and I feel no regret at all. I am sickened by what I have done to myself, and I am glad that I did it. And I feel…’ His throat sticks for a moment. ‘ _Inadequate.’_

Caleb’s brow creases. ‘To be among us?’

‘Yes.’

‘You think you are not adequate, with your mind, your drive, your abilities?’

Essek tries to laugh. 'Caleb, you – you and your friends _believe_ in things. In each other, in your goals. Even, apparently, in the friends who betray you.’ He tries to smile. To make it seem gently self-mocking, so that he can pretend it doesn’t hurt. ‘You spend your days shuttling back and forth across Wildemount to protect each other and thousands of people you have never met. While I have spent a hundred years surviving by solitude and ruthlessness and apathy.’

‘Until today,’ Caleb says, so lightly that it hurts.

Essek looks away, tilting his head and watching the slow dance of the ceiling stars. ‘For so long, I saw nothing of the world except coldness and harshness, so what did it matter if I was cold and harsh as well? If that was what was needed to survive?’

‘And we changed that.’

‘You changed it. You were good to me for no reason at all.’

A smile tugs at Caleb’s lips. ‘We put ball-bearings on the floor for you to trip on and gave you service complaints on your teleportation.’

‘Exactly. You treated me as you treated each other. Honestly, the ball bearings were amusing.'

Caleb looks at Essek for a long moment. ‘What you are saying is… because we were kind to you, you realised that you were not just one more shitty person in a shitty world. You were someone who chose to be cruel, in a world that didn’t have to be.’

‘Something like that. And now, here with you, I am surrounded by people who have chosen to care. So, yes. I feel inadequate.’

‘Essek,’ Caleb says. Carefully, like he always says names. ‘Choosing to care - is that not exactly what you did today?’

‘Is it? To me, it feels like I have cast aside everything I’ve worked on for a hundred years. You asked what I’m feeling; I feel selfish still. I feel _foolish,_ for having chosen this. It feels nothing like a heroic gesture.’ The words are coming out sharp and – and angry, which is so very unfair, when Caleb is being so kind, but Essek cannot help it. ‘What did _caring_ ever get me, through a century as the Shadowhand?’

‘It got you us.’

And there’s nothing to say to that, so Essek stares at the water. He bunches his fists, sending the tiniest vibrations through the surface, blurring the reflections of the stars.

‘Essek. Don’t you see how this makes what you did so important? You believed that it would achieve nothing. And it did hurt you. It hurts you now _._ You knew all of this, and you chose it anyway. You chose to care, when you thought the world was uncaring. That is what we _do_ in the Mighty Nein. We care like idiots, even if it doesn't change anything in the end. But you know - sometimes it does.’

And now, at last, Essek finds that he's crying. Which is mortifying. Maybe it’s the combined weight of a month without his friends and week terrified for them; maybe it’s the fact that his emotions have been scraped raw by the day. Maybe it’s just that Caleb’s kindness is too much, now that Essek’s walls are so very down. 

The moment he realises it, he wants to stop, stifle the tears, tell Caleb to leave.He wants to run from Caleb’s unflinching stare. He wants to sit beneath that stare until it burns him open and sees him, all of him. He wants to lean across the water, slide a hand around the back of Caleb's head and kiss him. He wants in the same ravenous, broken way he’s wanted all his life. Except he's not used to having that wanting centre around _people,_ and right now it's all focused on this man who could reach out a hand and touch Essek’s skin. Warm him until he forgets how to be cold.

Essek looks away. He has to.

‘And what if this does come to nothing?’ he says. Meaning, _this, my choice to be one of the Mighty Nein._ And meaning, too, _this, you and me. This whatever-it-is that’s between us. This fragile and unspoken thing._

‘Is relaxing with your friend in a hot tub not already something?’ Caleb’s face is unreadable, but there’s a smile in his voice.

 _Friend._ The word warms him, fills him. He breathes in, and to his intense relief, manages to stop the crying. ‘I suppose it is.’

Several moments pass, in warm steam and comfortable silence. Then Caleb says, ‘And are you… happy, Essek? Now?’

A ridiculous question – no. Not ridiculous. Just one that Essek isn’t used to people thinking, let alone asking. ‘I... I believe I am. I don't feel it yet, but... I know that it's there.’

‘And is this something that you want to try? Even if it does not come to anything?’

Caleb lifts one hand, indicates the two of them, the water, the narrow space between them. So. He means the unspoken thing. He means them.

And Essek should protest that it's impossible, after all the things that he's done, the ways he's hurt Caleb. But Caleb is watching him across the water, apparently willing to forgive that hurt, and right now Essek feels a little like he did before the Bright Queen. Desperate, reckless - and yet somehow calm. 

He doesn't know who he'll become, once he sheds the armour of loneliness and selfishness and distance. But it'll be someone better than who he was before, and that is, he thinks, enough.

‘I have always been someone,’ Essek says, slowly, ‘who wanted to find out what was possible.’

With Caleb stripped of his coat and scarf, Essek sees him swallow, sees the tense motion of his throat. He looks down at the surface of the hot tub. At Essek. Down again. ‘It could be something,’ he says.

‘We could,’ Essek agrees, and just like that, it’s not unspoken anymore, it’s there in the air between them.

Silence, for a second. Then the movement of water as Caleb gets up, walks around the edge of the hot tub, and sits next to Essek. Just sits there, the space between them brought down to almost nothing. He takes Essek’s hand. Waits. Not asking more, but offering it.

And, well. Essek has become rather good at making these decisions, over this day.

So he twists around and leans in, and there’s a half-second of terror in which he wonders if this was wrong, if Caleb didn’t mean, doesn’t want – but then Caleb takes Essek’s face in his hands like he did on the ship, but this time the kiss is to Essek’s lips, and this time, the moment lasts, and lasts, and lasts. And Essek is clumsy, but Caleb is careful, and their hands keep each other steady in the water, in the warmth.

It might come to nothing. They might come to nothing.

But they will matter.

And they will try.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm convinced the Bright Queen is a cleric because... it just seems likely given her devotion to the Luxon and the fact that she carries a staff but also wears armour. And also because plot convenience!
> 
> Title from 'Gravity' by Vienna Teng


End file.
